Metal and Other Appendages
by faithonhold
Summary: Emma visits Hook in the hospital one last time before leaving with Gold. Set after 2x12. Oneshot.


**Title: **Metal and Other Appendages (aka I am crap with titles, I apologize)

**Summary: **Emma visits Hook in the hospital one last time before leaving with Gold. Set after the events of "In the Name of the Brother."

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She should leave. She shouldn't be here.

She continued walking.

Why did she need to see him anyway? She didn't owe him anything.

_This is stupid,_ she thought to herself. _He's probably asleep. I should just go back._

She stopped right outside the door to his room, her hand hovering over the doorknob.

_This is silly. Why the fuck am I here? _Then: _I should leave._

She heaved a sigh. This was absolutely ridiculous. There was no reason she should be so hesitant to see him. She didn't care what he had to say. She just needed to tell him she was leaving, that was all. He deserved to know that, at least. It had nothing to do with the fact that her heart felt heavy just thinking about leaving without seeing him. Or the fact that she couldn't bear the thought that he'd be all alone in Storybrooke with her gone.

Nope.

_Stop it,_ she scolded herself. _He's a grown man, a fucking pirate for God's sake. He can take care of himself._

Huh.

Maybe she should just turn around.

Her hand retracted and she turned around to leave, because honestly _it was stupid_, before she saw that he had noticed her.

Dammit. So he was awake after all. And he had made no move to catch her attention or motion her inside. Odd.

Steeling her resolve, she turned the door handle (_finally_) and marched into the room.

Immediately she regretted her uptight stance because the damn broken (_beautiful_) bastard was smirking at her. In fact, he was outright _laughing _at her. The nerve of him! She ought to-

"I swear I won't bite, lass," he said interrupting her thoughts, the infuriating smirk still in place. His grin faded, his eyes suddenly intense, and he lowered his voice. "Not unless you ask me to."

For the love of-! _Why _was she here again? She didn't need to put up with his shit, not now!

She glared at him and was ready to march out of the room (and slam the door extra hard on the way out because the asshole deserved it) but his voice stopped her.

She heard a sigh and the clank of handcuffs against the metal rail (_she should probably take those off, they were kind of an overreaction_) and he said, in a tired and defeated voice, "I was joking, _Emma_. Don't be like that."

She wheeled around, her eyes narrowed. "Be like what?" she asked haughtily.

He started to gesture with his hand, but the handcuff limited the movement, so he used his stump instead. "So stubborn, lass. You know I don't mean to offend you."

Ok. So maybe he did have a point. She was entirely too uptight around him, so much that he didn't even bother to joke about it but rather felt a need to explain himself. Ah, fuck it all.

Her shoulders relaxed and Emma sighed, looking anywhere but him. "You're right. I'm sorry, it's just that with everything going on," she ran a hand over her face, "you coming to Storybrooke with the Queen Bitch in tow, Regina murdering Archie except not really, Gold asking-" wait no, she wasn't ready for that. She sighed again. "It's been a pretty stressful week."

Hook smiled, a genuine one that reached his eyes and made Emma's heart do funny things. He had quite a beautiful smile, actually, his teeth were perfect, all pearly and white, and by God his eyes were blue and dear Lord he was gorge-

"Well, it's your lucky day, lass," he announced, as if he was about to say something actually useful. "I happen to know many effective ways to relieve stress."

Of course. Hook wouldn't be Hook if he didn't know how to ruin a moment.

"Do you really?" Emma asked with mock curiosity. "And would any of them happen to involve smarmy pirates with an affinity for guyliner getting impaled by their own metal appendages?"

"I don't know about metal, love, but I would love to impale you with any of my other appendages," Hook purled, his eyes absolutely shining and his smirk so wide, Emma wouldn't be surprised if he turned into the Cheshire Cat.

She couldn't blame him. She had walked right into that one.

Emma couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry, but really?" Laughing, she pulled a chair from the wall closer to his bed. "_Impale you with any of my other appendages," _she mimicked, plopping down on the chair. She shook her head. "That was one of the worst lines ever."

Surprisingly, Hook was smiling at her. "Got you to laugh, didn't it?" he said, looking smug. "That's all that really matters."

Emma refused to acknowledge how her heart raced just a little bit faster at the fact that he looked so _triumphant_ making her laugh. It was endearing, really. When was the last time someone had tried so hard just to make her laugh?

She suddenly didn't regret coming here at all. All she knew was that it was going to be damn hard leaving him here.

"Hook, I-"

"Don't," he said suddenly, cutting her off. "Just, let me have this for a little bit, alright, lass?" He closed his eyes. "Then you can go off prancing and saving the world, protecting the innocent, whatever it is you do in this world."

Her throat constricted at his words and she was suddenly overcome by the need to be close to him. She stood up abruptly, her chair screeching backwards and his eyes popped open.

"What-" he began, confused, before Emma plopped down gently on the bed, careful not to hurt him.

"I'm leaving," she announced, heart suddenly racing.

Hook raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't look like it," he said, pointedly looking at her sitting right next to him.

She shook her head. "No, I'm leaving. With Gold."

He immediately tensed and his eyes narrowed. "What?" he asked incredulously.

"Rumplestiltskin. He needs to find his son," she explained, looking at the hand enclosed by the cuff. "He called in the favor I owed him so I have to go with him." Her gaze slowly returned to his.

"Don't," he said immediately.

Emma shook her head, saying, "I can't. He said he'd-"

"It doesn't matter what he said! He can't be trusted!" The cuff clanked against the bed again as he attempted to move his arm in agitation. "He's going to use you." He had stopped trying to pull on his arm and she could see the wrist looking red and blotchy.

Emma shrugged and began searching her pockets for something. "Probably," she said, digging into the pocket of her jacket. "But I didn't come here for your opinion. I already made my decision. I just thought you'd like to hear it from me."

She leaned over, something small in her hands and there was a small click before the handcuff fell away.

Hook's hand immediately came up as he rubbed his stump on the bruised wrist. He turned a questioning gaze to Emma.

She held up the key, shrugging once more. "Thought you'd like to have a little bit more freedom once I leave. Wouldn't want you chained up here for God knows how long." She pocketed the key before standing up. "Who knows what sort of havoc you would wreak."

There was an awkward pause when she realized she ought to leave but didn't know exactly how to. She raised her hands awkwardly before dropping them to her sides.

"Emma," Hook said.

"Well, I've done what I came here for. I guess I'll be leaving then," she said quickly. She had to make a hasty exit before she did something very stupid.

Hook's newly-freed hand suddenly shot out and grasped her wrist. Goddammit. She hadn't been quick enough.

"Emma," he said again.

She turned around slowly, anxious to see what he had to say. The butterflies in her stomach were having a fucking celebration.

Her eyes didn't leave his hand on her wrist, because she knew if she met his eyes, she'd be a goner.

He didn't say anything for so long that just standing there staring at their hands was getting awkward and she was forced to look up.

Cerulean blue eyes met hers and her heart clenched because dammit all to hell _she wanted to kiss him so badly._

She didn't though. She couldn't. So she didn't do anything, just stared back at him.

He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He raised her hand to his lips and landed a soft kiss on it. She gasped as his lips met her skin and he looked up at her through his eyelashes, dropping her hand and settling back into his pillows.

"Don't worry, lass," he said, closing his eyes and smirking. "There's a lot more where that came from."

She almost groaned. She did not need to leave him thinking she wanted him or anything. Oh the horror!

"Besides, if just kissing your hand elicits that kind of response, just imagine what else…" he trailed off, but he didn't need to finish his sentence as his wondering eyes made it quite clear what he meant.

She rolled her eyes. "You just never stop, do you?" she asked exasperatedly.

He shot her a wicked grin. "Not until you admit you want me," he said.

"Right," she scoffed. "Never it is, then."

She turned around to leave again. "If you cause any trouble, I will hear about it and there will be repercussions," she said sternly.

"Oh, I can't wait," he purred.

She resisted the urge to smack him and opted for another fabulous eye roll.

"Behave," she commanded, wanting to smooth out his hair, but resisting the ridiculous urge to do so.

It was his time to roll his eyes at her.

"I'm not an untamed brute, Emma. I understand. I wouldn't want to cause any trouble knowing the Sheriff isn't there to reprimand me, anyway," he said off-handedly as if the idea was absolutely absurd.

"Right, well, I'll be leaving then," she said, and this time she really did start to walk away.

"Oh, and Emma?" he called out just as she opened the door.

She tilted her head to let her know she was listening.

"Be careful."

Her heart soared, and with her back still turned towards him with no way of him seeing her expression, her lips upturned into a large smile.

"I will."

And she stepped out of the room.

**-END-**

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**A/N:** I know I have other stories to update and I truly apologize. I have no other excuse other than laziness. Honestly. Classes have started now and I'll be procrastinating a lot more so hopefully I'll be finishing those up soon! I'm supposed to be studying for two exams so I decided to write Captain Swan instead. Tomorrow we get to see if she really did go see him before she left (highly doubtful) but I wanted to write something so this came up. Apologies if they came off too OOC. I like to think Emma is attracted to him (who isn't?) so her inner-monologue always goes a bit crazy when he's around. Anyway, sorry for this rant and thanks so much for reading!


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